Hungarians took to the streets of Budapest this evening in a fifth day of protests to press Ferenc Gyurcsany to resign, after a leaked tape showed the prime minister admitting he had lied to win April elections.
Hundreds of elderly far-right demonstrators marched in the capital. A growing crowd of several thousand also prepared for an overnight vigil outside parliament, the latest in a campaign triggered by the Sunday leak that has seen peaceful rallies and rioting in which more than 200 people were wounded. Mr Gyurcsany has refused to resign and has been backed by his Socialist Party in introducing a package of budget cuts to rein in the country's huge deficit, which has surged to 10.1 percent of gross domestic product after four years of overspending.
Some of the demonstrators outside parliament, reinforced by fresh supplies of sacks of potatoes and onions from the countryside, were disappointed that the main Fidesz opposition party had called off an anti-government rally for tomorrow.
A rally by the far right MIEP party today attracted hundreds of people, many of them elderly, drawing shouts of derision from Budapest waiters and taxi drivers along the route for the slow pace of their march.
MIEP leader lambasted Fidesz for cancelling its protest. "Originally we wanted to get Fidesz to exert pressure more strongly but Fidesz has given up," Istvan Csurka said.
Mr Gyurcsany, a socialist millionaire, said Hungarians still backed his government.
"My sentiment is that the population largely supports me ... So I will not resign," he told Le Monde in an interview.
An opinion poll showed the government's popularity had dropped to 22 percent from around 40 in the April election, as a result of a package of tax hikes and benefit cuts.
But the polls showed Fidesz had been damaged too. Some 51 per cent said its leader Viktor Orban bore some responsibility for the riots while 57 per cent said all politicians lied and so the prime minister's comments did not cause the crisis.
Gyurcsany was taped at a Socialist conference in May as saying in a profanity-peppered speech the party had done nothing in its four years in government and had lied about the state of the economy and plans for painful reform of Hungary's finances.